* Although this is good news for teeth, the research could also be applied to heal bones and other tissues in the body.

* Teeth Regeneration will only be used rarely. If a filling will work, then dentists will stick with the current cheaper and familiar option.

A new peptide, embedded in a soft gel or a thin, flexible film and placed next to a cavity, encourages cells inside teeth to regenerate in about a month, according to a new study in the journal ACS Nano.

A Guide to Recent Battery Advances

Battery breakthroughs could lower costs and improve performance for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage--but commercializing these new technologies will be challenging.

By Kevin Bullis

...The MIT researchers demonstrated a new battery electrode, based on specially treated carbon nanotubes, that last for thousands of cycles without any loss in performance. Batteries made from these electrodes could deliver enough power to propel large delivery vans or garbage trucks, for example, without the batteries being too heavy to be practical. (The researchers need to increase the thickness of the electrodes for them to be practical in these applications.) Companies such as A123 Systems, based in Watertown, MA, have also developed very high-power lithium-ion batteries, and other academic groups and startups are developing carbon nanotube-based ultracapacitors, which store energy using a different mechanism than batteries that's particularly useful for high power and long life.

Scientists find natural way to curb your greed

July 5, 2010

(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Manchester scientists have discovered a naturally-occurring appetite suppressant that could be used to make a diet drug without side effects.

Professor Simon Luckman and Dr Garron Dodd believe the peptide hemopressin, which affects the reward part of the brain responsible for hedonistic behaviour, might treat some aspects of alcohol and drug abuse.
Dr Dodd, co-author of the findings published in the Journal of Neuroscience, explains: “It has long been known that the rewarding aspects of feeding behaviour influence our appetite, so that sometimes we eat for pleasure rather than hunger. This is because the cannabinoid system in the brain - a component of the naturally-existing circuitry responsible for reward - is affected by chemicals that are termed ‘agonists’ which bind to its receptors and increase the reward from feeding.

Results: Researchers at Hewlett-­Packard have shown that nanoscale circuit elements called memristors, which have previously been made into memory devices, can perform full Boolean logic, the type used for computation in computer processors.

Why it matters: Memristor logic devices are about an order of magnitude smaller than devices made from transistors, so they could pack more computing power into a given space. Memristor arrays that perform both logic and memory functions could eliminate the need to transfer data between a processor and a hard drive in future computers, which would save energy.

Gigantic Prehistoric Whale Hunted Other Whales

A prehistoric leviathan that represented a more savage Moby Dick once hunted smaller whales around 12 million or 13 million years ago, researchers say.

Fossils of the whale's skull and foot-long teeth found in Peru suggest the monstrous sperm whales ranged in size from almost 43 feet (13 meters) to 59 feet (18 meters), or longer than a school bus. Just the skull alone reaches a length of almost 10 feet (3 meters).

The ancient sperm whale's killer arsenal included 14-inch- (36-cm)- long teeth resembling elephant tusks that allowed it to rip and tear its prey, unlike modern sperm whales that lack functional teeth in their upper jaws and rely upon suction to grab giant squid.